History 2019 Abstracts
Pen and Dagger: America’s Journalist Spies in Soviet Russia, 1920-21 • Elizabeth Atwood, Hood College • The uneasy relationship between the American news media and American spy agencies can be traced to the U.S. Army’s Military Intelligence Division that was created during World War I and subsequently dispatched agents to Russia immediately following the Bolshevik Revolution. This paper explores three ways the organization used journalism to help gather information on Soviet Russia in 1920 and 1921: hiring American news reporters to work as agents, dispatching agents posing as reporters, and asking journalists to provide specific information. The three ways are illustrated in biographical sketches of Marguerite Harrison, a Baltimore Sun reporter who worked for the Army’s spy organization; Weston Estes, an agent who posed as a reporter and filmmaker; an Albert Boni, a publisher and newspaper reporter who agreed to obtain samples of counterfeit American money for MID’s office in Berlin.
Long Run: How Nick News with Linda Ellerbee stayed on TV for 25 years • Alison Burns • This study explores the longevity of the longest-running children’s newsmagazine in television history, Nick News with Linda Ellerbee. While there are scores of news and feature articles about the program and its host, there are few scholarly articles and books that even mention, let alone analyze the show, and no study to date about its history and longevity. Using historical methodology, including original interviews, primary source documents and videos of programs, this article examines how Nick News with Linda Ellerbee stayed on the air for 25 years despite relatively low ratings and meager ad revenue for the network. This paper proposes that a confluence of forces kept the show running, including federal mandates for children’s educational programming, a steady commitment from network executives, an engaging and mission-oriented host who owned the show, high-profile guests and timely topics, and prestigious awards from the news industry.
“It is what I came for – to share in fear and suffering”: The Catholic Worker and the Civil Rights Movement • Bailey Dick, Ohio University • While most of the public knows of Dorothy Day for her social work, pacifist activism, and writing, few are familiar her decades-long commitment to combatting racial injustice. This paper will utilize a close reading of Day’s personal papers, her own reporting in The Catholic Worker to show she did what many mainstream newspapers did not. Day invested in covering civil rights on a consistent basis through long-term relationships with southerners, frequent visits to communities of color, and self-reflection on their role in the struggle.
Johnny Neill’s Lonely Defense of Press Freedom in 1893 Texas • Ralph Frasca • Johnny Neill made a fateful decision when he learned his local city council banned a newspaper as a “public nuisance.” His decision landed the blind twenty-nine-year-old news dealer in prison. His lonely, principled stand for free expression paved the way for two landmark court decisions ensuring freedom of the press, including one of the most famous First Amendment cases in Supreme Court history.
“Highways to Hope”: Samuel L. Adams’ Investigation into Public Accommodations Compliance Under the 1964 Civil Rights Act • Michael Fuhlhage, Wayne State University; Keena Neal, Wayne State University; Jalisa Patrick • Samuel L. Adams, the grandson of a slave, covered the Civil Rights Movement as the St. Petersburg Times’ first Black journalist and the only Black reporter on the race beat in the early 1960s. This paper examines the mainstream reporting methods, prior Black press experience, and ethos of nonviolent civic life that he brought to a 4,300-mile road trip testing Southern compliance with the 1964 Civil Rights Act and investigative series, “Highways to Hope.”
The Yom Kippur War as Reported in Milwaukee’s Newspapers • Timothy Roy Gleason, University of Wisconsin Oshkosh • At the time of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, the Milwaukee-based Wisconsin Jewish Chronicle was a transmitter of news and helped to maintain the Jewish-American experience. Using James Carey’s concepts of communication, this study examines content published by the Chronicle and Milwaukee’s daily newspapers. The Chronicle worked across a transmission-ritual continuum—although close to the ritual side—while the transmission-oriented dailies gave little attention to its Jewish or Arab community members.
The Last Japanese WWII Holdout – Japanese & US Newspaper Coverage of Hiroo Onoda’s Thirty-Year War” • Daniel Haygood, Elon University • This research analyzes Japanese and American newspaper coverage to understand how the media shaped and framed an ongoing World War II narrative centered on Hiroo Onoda and his thirty-year holdout on Lubang Island in the Philippines. The goal is to understand the narratives built around Onoda’s story and how the perspectives are different between the print media of the two countries. The method used for this research was to review coverage by prominent newspapers in each country: Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun, Asahi Shimbun and The Japan Times and United States’ Washington Post and the New York Times. The learning informs us that there were differences in how the Japanese and US newspapers covered Onoda’s holdout. The coverage also forced the country to ask hard questions about itself and its intensive drive for material wealth.
Summer of ’67: A Comparative Analysis of Coverage of the Detroit Race Riots • Brittany Jefferson, University of Georgia • The current study seeks to explore the different ways that three newspapers; The New York Times, The Detroit Free Press and The Michigan Chronicle, covered the Detroit riots of 1967 from their respective standpoints as national, local and African American centered publications. This study will use a thematic content analysis and the theoretical framework of framing to determine the differing perspective of each news outlet. This research serves to provide an historical example of the growing body of literature regarding protests coverage across media outlets.
Victorian Eyes: Examining Nineteenth-Century American Journalism Through Three Major English Travel Writers • Farooq Kperogi, Kennesaw State University • American newspapers and journalists—and the newspaper reading culture that American newspaper journalists inspired— were irresistible narrative magnets for many European, especially English, travelers who visited America in the nineteenth century. Nevertheless, the records of the impressions that registered in the minds of Europeans travelers to America about nineteenth-century American journalism were not always the products of unmediated empirical observations; they were shaped as much by the social and cultural predispositions of the writers as they were by veridical perceptions of the time. Although there is already robust literature on nineteenth-century American journalism, there are scarcely any scholarly explorations of the forms and substance of this period from the perspectives of travel writers. This paper contributes to the disciplinary conversation between journalism history, travel literature and literary journalism by providing perspectives on nineteenth-century Americans newspapers and journalists from the travel narratives of Victorian travel writers and exploring the reactions these narratives provoked in American newspapers of the time.
The “Cronkytization” of the News Presenter Role in the United Kingdom • Madeleine Liseblad, Middle Tennessee State University • With increasing job demands in the 1990s, the British news presenter role underwent a transformation—a “Cronkytization”—as journalists were hired instead of actors/actresses. This case study examined the change, using boundary work and parasocial interaction. Boundaries were clearly redefined as journalists overtook the news presenter role. The role was elevated, becoming more visible for a stronger audience connection. The rotating presenter system was abolished, they were produced as teams, and personality was encouraged.
“Toward the benefit of the Allies”: Patriotism, Propaganda, and the Government-Press Relationship of the Great War • Meghan McCune • This study explores how American journalist Stanley Washburn operated as an instrument of government during the Great War. While the modern government-press relationship is often understood as an adversarial one, the experiences of Great War reporters illustrate a cooperative and friendly relationship that has not been adequately documented by scholars. This study suggests that a new “agency model” is necessary to fully understand the government-press relationship during the Great War and its impact on the modern press.
Regional Differences and the Associated Press: The Mason-Dixon Line in Journalism Standards • Gwyneth Mellinger, James Madison University • Following the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation ruling, the Associated Press found itself at the center of an ideological struggle in which southern, pro-segregation editors imposed their perceptions of objectivity, balance, and accuracy on the wire service. This analysis, which draws on correspondence between AP executives and southern members, demonstrates that unrelenting advocacy for news coverage that reflected southern views on race did in fact alter the wire service’s news values. Specifically, AP executives bent to pressure to cover racial discrimination in the North and to transmit stories that emphasized negative racial stereotypes of African Americans, portraying them as unfit for life in an integrated society.
Media coverage of the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979 • Hoa Nguyen, University of Maryland • The current study examines media coverage of the Sino-Vietnamese War in 1979 within the power play between the two Communist brothers. This short war entailed controversial discourse way after its end. For both Chinese and Vietnamese history, this war is a gloomy chapter, and given the significance of casualties and political implications, the war was not given the media coverage it merited in either China or Vietnam. Due to attempts by both nations to cover up this war for fear of hurting bilateral relationships, the Sino-Vietnamese War, for the most part, has been written about by outsiders. Although journalism is considered the first draft of history, the paucity of first-hand media coverage has led to works on this war relying heavily on political analysis and assumptions. Now that more and more access is given to the journalism sources in both China and Vietnam, it is high time one looked at the war, its coverage, and its implications in a more thorough picture. The current study explores media coverage of the war from the following main sources: Nhan Dan newspaper and The New York Times. Subordinate sources include US embassy cables, interviews, books, and historical collections. This study analyzes the dual mute-unmute mode of the Sino-Vietnamese relationship as seen in coverage of the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War.
Tabloid Journalism and Right-Wing Populism: The New York Daily News in the Mid-20th Century • Matthew Pressman, Seton Hall University • The New York Daily News in the mid-20th century was the highest-circulation newspaper in American history (more than 2 million weekday, more than 4 million Sunday), but very little has been written about it. Drawing on seldom-used archival collections and the paper’s recently digitized backfile, this article examines the Daily News’ remarkable success and its controversial editorial positions, arguing that both were rooted in a desire to serve and fight for its core audience.
Neither Public Nor Private: Inventing PBS television, 1965- 1967 • Camille Reyes, Trinity University • Through textual analyses of archival material from the Carnegie Corporation of New York, as well as the Carnegie Commission report on educational television, the paper traces lost lessons from two public television systems abroad, as well as inconsistent rhetoric concerning diversity and audience construction. Despite the best of intentions for a system of public television independent from the constraints of advertising, American PBS was and is a strange hybrid—neither public, nor private.
Cultural Hegemony in New York Press Coverage of the 1969 Stonewall Riots • Michelle Rotuno-Johnson, Ohio University • This paper analyzes New York newspapers’ coverage of the June 1969 Stonewall Inn riots in New York City, particularly depictions of the people involved, using Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. A qualitative thematic analysis is used to examine articles from the New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and Village Voice in the two weeks after the initial Stonewall riots on June 28-29, 1969. The analysis aimed to reveal any underlying stereotypes of gay men and masculinity that may be perpetuated by the media in journalists’ descriptions of the people who confronted police that summer. These four newspapers would set the tone for coverage of the gay rights movement in other U.S. publications, as other queer people began calling for equal rights and more fair press coverage after the riots. This paper defines hegemony theory and traces press coverage of homosexuals from the World War II era until the 1960s. This is a significant study because there has not been an in-depth academic study about contemporary coverage and the effects of societal pressures on press coverage of Stonewall. This paper is also significant as the 50th anniversary of the riots approaches. Research concludes that the New York Times, New York Daily News, New York Post, and Village Voice all contributed to maintaining a heterosexual, masculine power structure through their portrayals of the rioters, thus creating a separation between the patrons at Stonewall and the societal norms of the time.
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